“I saw you, the man behind the mask and the layers of leather you use as armor. I fell in love with that man. I saw the real Blackie; I saw Dominic Petra.”
“Dominic Petra died a long time ago,” he sneered, grabbing the bottle off the bar and taking a swig. He didn’t even flinch as he chugged the poison. “And the man you think you know is nothing more than a guy who got his kicks off banging a young girl, someone who wasn’t touched, someone he could take advantage of. Your father sheltered you too much. He should’ve brought you around here more, then maybe you wouldn’t dream so much. But you’re young, there’s still time for you to learn…”
“Don’t do that. Don’t cheapen what we are because you’re fucking high.”
He placed the bottle back on the bar and leaned in close pinning me with a cold hard stare.
His eyes were dead.
Just like his soul.
Another crack in my heart.
“What we are is nothing,” he hissed. “You are nothing to me but Jack’s daughter and a virgin pussy I got to play with.”
I didn’t even realize my actions until I felt the sting on the palm of my hand and saw the red handprint on his cheek.
It’s over.
“Again,” he ordered.
“No,” I shouted.
“Again!” he demanded, crooking his finger beckoning me to inflict more pain on him.
I backed away from the bar, shaking my head as tears rolled down my face. He dropped his hands and took a step back himself.
“Get out,” he rasped. “Get out and forget you ever saw me.”
It was all a lie.
I told you so.
I grabbed my keys from the bar before walking out from behind it and started for the door. I had nothing left to give, no fight left inside of me and so I surrendered.
I stopped in front of the door and slowly turned around to meet his gaze.
“I could’ve been your queen. All you had to do was let me,” I whispered through my sobs, before turning back around and walking out the door.
There are two sides in a war and only one winner.
So how come we both lost?
Chapter Twenty-seven
After my wife died I relived her death for six months straight. I’d wake up drenched in a cold sweat from the nightmare of looking into her lifeless eyes and being the one who forced them closed.
Whoever says history doesn’t repeat itself never walked a day in my shoes.
For the last month, since the night I ended things with Lacey, her face has haunted me. I relive the moment I looked into her eyes and told her she was nothing but her father’s daughter and a piece of pussy. It’s the look reflected in her eyes as she rears her hand back and slaps me that consumes me, night after night—the look of pure defeat and unexplainable heartbreak.
She loved me.
Heard that shit with my own ears.
And she’ll never know how much I love her.
I lived life without fear until I fell for Lacey and, Boots threatened to use her against me. Not once in all my years on this earth, have I been afraid of anything. But after that message came through on my phone, that picture of her at school—I knew fear.
I hurt her.
I bruised her ego and broke her heart.
I wounded her with my words.
I saved her from me.
I saved her life.
I can live with the guilt of my actions as long as she’s breathing.
As long as she’s safe.
If you can even call this shit living.
No, this shit isn’t living.
I know what living is and for a short while I lived and I lived hard.
Living is holding her in my arms.
Living is watching her face light up when I walk into a room.
Living is Lacey’s smile.
Her laugh.
The way she blushes when I tell her she’s beautiful.
Her kiss.
And her touch.
Living is watching the woman you love take what she needs from your body and as she’s doing it, she looks into your eyes and you can see forever.
Living is loving Lace.
This is death.
The death of a man who was never good enough to live and share a memory with someone as pure as her.
I could’ve done it another way but even now, after time has passed, I can’t think of another way where it would’ve worked. Lacey saw through me, she saw passed the demons and the self-destruction. She saw the remnants of my soul and a glimpse of who I wanted to be.
I had to make her hate me.
Take that beautiful love she had for me and turn it into ugly.
I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to her, no matter how much I try to tell myself I had no choice, my angel didn’t deserve to believe she was worthless in my eyes.
She wished for me to live.
She wished for me to smile.
And she wished to be the one who made me smile.
She got her three wishes.
My only wish for her is to know she is everything good left in the world.
She’s beauty, and she’s hope.
She’s strength, and she’s passion.
She’s the light you look for when you’re stuck in the darkness.
She’s just…she’s an angel.
She was my angel.
And now she’s free.